The Name Game

Humor me, would you please? Click on the video below and then quickly close your eyes.

(Ok, you can open them now).

TA DA!

There it is folks. Our new name. Our new logo. Our new colors.

You’re probably wondering what the heck took us so long to come up with something new. To be completely honest, we’ve been using this name for a couple of weeks now. Well really, we chose it shortly after we had to pitch the other name. Why wait so long to tell you? I wish I could say it was some brilliant marketing ploy designed to create brand tension. But the reality has more to do with my experience as a mom, than my marketing acumen. Early on in my pregnancy, when my husband and I were dreaming up names for the tiny being inside of me who had not yet co-opted my body with a vengeance, we floated a few ideas past friends and family. Big mistake. Because everyone has an opinion, in case you didn’t know that. And here’s a another news flash: people don’t necessarily filter their opinions even when it’s none of their friggin’ business. They also don’t care if they step all over your feelings, or make unreasonable demands and proclamations, or behave in ways that make you want to push them off a tall building, ahem. Luckily, none of the original names we considered had any lasting appeal to us (and luckily, we didn’t give birth to a boy). But, for the remainder of my pregnancy we kept our cards a little closer to our vest, as they say. Especially when we decided we were going to name the baby Etta, if it was a girl. (Yes, of course I chose not to find out the sex of my baby ahead of time. When have I ever made anything easy on anyone?) I didn’t want to see even one raised eyebrow or forced smile. People rarely question the merit’s of a baby’s name once it is outside the womb. They’re usually too distracted by the warm little bundle in their arms to wonder why you chose to name your child after a hardscrabble New York borough.

As you can imagine, we were disappointed that we needed to abandon our original name. But at least it was our choice and not someone making the choice for us. In keeping with my eternally optimistic disposition, I also saw our name change as a great opportunity to expand our brand (already! And we’re not even open for business yet). We could choose a name that wouldn’t limit us to lunch, in case we wanted to do evening events. We could create a brand that reflected what we do or who we are. The brand name world was our oyster and we were going to find that pearl no matter how many business-name oysters we have to shuck. I know, it’s not a great metaphor when you apply it to something specific. No Pulitzer for me this year.

We spent lots of time mulling over lists of names from branding experts, trying to find one that conveyed the essence of sandwiches. And then we researched for oodles of hours to find out that many of those great foodie names are already taken. Don’t want to make the same mistake, twice. Then Suzanne’s husband slipped Ebbett’s Good To Go into the list. It made the initial cut, although neither of us were seriously considering it. We were too focused on the food names at the time. But as we whittled the list down, Suz and I found that we kept going back to Ebbett’s. And well, here we are.

The clincher for me was that Ebbett’s truly does reflect who we are. See, “Ebbett’s” is a mash-up of our kids’ names. While neither Suzanne nor I want to be solely defined by the fact that we are mothers, the fact remains that we have kids; much of what we do with this business will be guided by what is best for our families. So, having our kids names as our company name really brought things full-circle for me. It’ll be a daily reminder to keep things in balance. Plus, the kids are fired up that we named the business after them. Plan to milk that one for a loooooong time.

Enough about us. What do you think of our new name?